


Not Patient Nor Kind (Envious and Proud)

by metaphasia



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: And By 'It' I Mean A Relationship, But Marry Me Maybe, F/M, Fake It Till You Make It, and this is crazy, hey i just met you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:14:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25520110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metaphasia/pseuds/metaphasia
Summary: Marta stared at her reflection in the mirror and felt the strangest disconnect. She had always dreamed of her wedding day when she was younger, had had so many thoughts and plans about how it would be. But of all her wildest dreams, this was so far beyond what she had ever considered.
Relationships: Marta Cabrera/Ransom Drysdale
Comments: 13
Kudos: 157
Collections: Just Married Exchange 2020





	Not Patient Nor Kind (Envious and Proud)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CypressSunn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/gifts).



_Jesus_ .

There were days when Ransom just couldn't stand anyone.

Actually, if he was being honest, he couldn't stand most people, most of the time. While he certainly liked to act as if he was the smartest person in the room, he was willing to admit that he wasn't always. There were plenty of people in the world, hell, even in his social circles, who were smarter than he was.

But the thing of it was, it was so obvious to him that so many of his friends and relatives just weren't playing with a full deck, that they weren't even in his league. It seemed like half the upper crust of Massachusetts was up at the Manor for the Fourth, and he could count on his fingers the number of people who he actually took seriously.

As evening had set, and the fireworks back in town finally hit their grand finale, the adults had drifted back inside to discuss politics over coffee and bourbon. But it seemed everyone under the age of thirty had decided to remain out on the porch to get some sort of a reprieve from their ossified, incessant  _bullshit_ . And, in the nature of such things, they had broken out the party games and started playing Mafia.

The first two rounds had gone well enough. Ransom had been one of the assassins in the second round even, and managed to successfully get the villagers to turn on each other and went on to wipe them all out. But the third round had ended quickly when one of Meg's hippie liberal arts friends had asked the nurse who was taking care of Harlan if she was one of the mafioso, and she had puked immediately after her denial. It had turned out she was incapable of lying without vomiting, and she had run back inside after the jeers of some of the others in the circle.

So, while he couldn't prove that he was the  _smartest_ person sitting out there on the Thrombey Estate, Ransom felt extremely confident he wasn't the  _dumbest_ . And suddenly, he felt the urge to not be in that particular room anymore. Maybe it had been the few extra beers he had put away over the course of the day, maybe it was just that he was finally fed up with all of their inanity, but Ransom had drifted back into the house a few minutes after that nurse chick went inside.

He found her in one of the smaller bathrooms, the faucet running, intent on trying to clean herself up.

“Knock, knock,” he said, leaning back against the door frame. He watched as she jumped slightly, clearly startled, not having realized anyone was there watching.

“Sorry,” she told him, grabbing one of the hand towels to wipe her face clear. “I didn't know anyone was there, I'll get out for you in just a second.”

“Relax,” he told her, and waved it off. “I just came to see how you were doing.”

“I'm fine,” she answered him, and, after a slight pause, turned the water off.

“Sorry, I've had a few, so I don't really remember what your name was again. Mary?” he asked her, and tilted his head to the side quizzically.

“Marta,” she corrected him, and ducked her head, not making eye contact with him while she spoke.

“So, Marta, why were you even out there in the first place?” he asked her, and when she froze, he elaborated. “No, I mean, if you puke every time you lie, why were you playing Mafia with us? Wasn't that always gonna end badly?”

“Harlan told me to,” she said, her hands drifting down to fiddle with the hem of her shirt as she continued. “He said it was my night off, and that I should relax and have fun with everyone else. That I should play some games.”

“Well,” Ransom drawled out, half affectation and half the liquor coursing through him. “If Mafia isn't your game, what is?”

Ransom watched the stones develop into various abstract shapes on the board. There were no two ways about it, Marta was a hell of a Go player. He had already been pissed drunk when they had migrated upstairs to find the board and a quiet room to play in, and he had slowed down a little, but hadn't stopped, while on the other hand, Marta had barely touched the booze around the mansion. She had been edging him out for the last two hours, and while it was clearly due to his intoxication, he wasn't sure who would win if he _wasn't_ wasted.

Which was just the way he liked it. Well, no, he liked to win, but he at least wanted whoever he was playing against to put up a fight. And Marta was clearly in his league.

But for all that she wasn't hammered, it was becoming increasingly clear to him that she was distracted somehow.

“So what's eating at you?” he asked her, and her face jumped up to look at him instead of concentrating on the board as she had been, ripples of shock visible. “And no bullshit, okay? You can't lie anyway, so just tell me the truth. It's pretty obvious there's something that's been bothering you all night.”

She sighed, and hesitated, and Ransom jumped in for the kill. He leaned forward and put as much earnestness as he could into his voice. “Look, it's just us up here. You can tell me whatever it is.”

“Even if I could tell you what is bothering me,” she finally said, choosing her words with deliberation. “I don't think you would actually care.”

And in that moment, for some strange reason, Ransom realized that he actually did care. “Everyone else here,” he said, and he wasn't even sure where he was going with that sentence when he started. “They're all so  _boring_ . You are literally the only person here who is remotely interesting. And whatever this is that you're worried about, it's gotta be an interesting puzzle too, if it's keeping you confused. I swear, no judgement, I'll keep your secrets. Maybe I can even help you figure it out too.”

“It's my mother,” Marta said, slowly, cautiously. “She's sick. And she doesn't have health insurance. Can't really afford it. And even if we could ...” she trailed off again, and he leaned back in his seat, giving her room to continue. “And even if we could, she's illegal.”

Ransom leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment.

“Well,” he said, and leered at her. “You know, there's one easy way to fix that problem.”

Ransom felt his head pounding as he rolled out of bed. He had clearly had way too much to drink last night, so it was a good thing he had chosen to stay at the manor the night before. As he walked across to the door to head for the bathroom, though, he noticed that he wasn't the only one who had stayed the night.

Marta was curled up on a comfortable armchair, tucked catty-corner in the far corner of his bedroom. He ignored her for the time being, choosing instead to continue his original journey. After he washed up though, he returned to his room and tapped her arm. She slowly unfurled from how she was bundled up into a ball, and noticed him staring at her.

“Good morning,” she told him, her voice soft, and her cheeks tinged faintly pink.

“Morning,” he said.

“How much do you remember of last night?” she asked him, as she stood up, and once again fiddled with the hem of her shirt nervously.

“Most of it,” Ransom hedged, as he cast his mind back over the night's events. “We played Go for a few hours, talked about your family …” he trailed off. There wasn't anything egregious in his behavior that he would have to apologize to her for to save face for the family, that he could recall, but his memory had gotten a bit blurry in the later hours of the night.

“After I told you about my mother,” she started to explain, and her hands dipped down to her pockets. “You told me you had a solution, and you kept giving me this. You wouldn't take it back, so I told you I would hold onto it until the morning, when you were sober again.”

For all of their interactions up until that point, and in the times he had seen her around the Manor, she had been meek and unassuming in her body language. She had minimized herself at every turn. But now, for the first time, she looked up into his face and met his eyes, and pulled her hand out from her jean pocket to show him the object she had sitting there overnight.

_Fuck_ .

It was his great-grandmother's engagement ring. Not Nana Thrombey's, but his mother's mother's mother's ring. It had been his by right; it had passed down through his mother, and Linda hadn't wanted or needed it – Richard had had his own family heirloom to pass to her. It had wound up passing to Ransom, although it had sat in the Manor, unused, ever since.

Ransom had picked up bits and pieces of trivia over the years, and more than bits when he had worked for Harlan as a research assistant. The law was extremely clear; if he had offered that ring to Marta, she was under no obligation to return it to him. But there she stood, her hand proffering it out to him regardless.

While the money from it would have made a huge difference for her, a life changing sum, losing it to her would have been equally life changing for him. He had never really felt shame at his relatives' constant lectures over his behavior; it had always been too hypocritical, coming from the lot of them, for him to take seriously. But losing a valuable heirloom, a piece of their heritage, would have been the sort of mistake he couldn't recover from.

He hesitated for a moment, the shame burning him up inside at his having given it away so freely, and at her returning it equally as freely. But it didn't still his hand for long, and he reached out and plucked it from her hand, tucking it into his own pants pocket until he could return it to the safe later in the day.

“Come on,” he said, and gave her a peace offering in thanks. “Let's go grab some breakfast.”

They made their way down to the kitchen, where others were already congregating for food. Ransom left Marta at the counter, while he went over to the coffee maker, but he managed to still be close enough to hear Jacob cough out a slur under his breath towards Marta.

Ransom froze, and his blood started churning. The worthless little asswipe was at least good for comedy on occasion, as strident in his views as Meg was, even if neither of them could see how similar they were, just in opposite directions. But while he normally wouldn't care what Jacob said, this time it enraged him. He wasn't under the delusion that Marta's returning the ring made her superior in any way. But Jacob was barely capable of repeating the nonsense he read on the internet, he couldn't even hope to compete in Marta's league. He had seen it last night, that she was the same as him, and as Harlan, capable of doing better.

“Watch your fucking tone,” Ransom spat out, his voice low, and he marched around back to the counter to stand side by side with Marta. It pained him to see her cower like she was in front of Jacob's words, to see her not retaliate but hold her poise.

“What,” Jacob said, looking startled at his outburst, and slightly cowed into fear. “She's just the help!”

“No,” Ransom said, and slipped his hand down behind the counter to grasp Marta's. He heard her gasp at his actions, before he lifted their hands back up. “She's family.”

And there, glittering on her finger where he had slipped it on unseen to anyone else in the kitchen, stood his great grandmother's ring.

Let the fuckers chew on  _that_ .

Marta stumbled through the door of her family's apartment, and dropped her purse on the side table. She leaned back against the door, slumped down to the floor and cradled her head in her hands. That only reminded her of what had stressed her out, as the cold metal of the ring on her finger dug into her forehead.

After Ransom's surprise announcement when they had gone for breakfast, the house had exploded into shock and outrage. She had expected Jacob to say foul things, but the rest of the Thrombeys had been equally as vicious. While she had always known they didn't care for her on any sort of personal level, and were mostly polite for the sake of appearances, Linda yelling  _you're throwing your life away_ at Ransom had still been a surprise to her, and had cut her more deeply than she had expected.

When Harlan came down the stairs however, he had instantly stepped in and pulled her aside to make sure she was alright. When she had told him that it wasn't some sort of trick or game on Ransom's part (which edged close enough against the boundaries of the truth to make her stomach jump) he had then given her a hug, and turned to defend her to the rest of the room, brooking no argument from his descendants. She had been glad to see him squeeze Ransom's arm in support, since the relationship between the two of them had been rocky at times. Harlan truly was a good man, unlike the rest of his family, genuinely caring what happened to other people.

Well, after today, there might be one member of his family he was like. She had only interacted casually with Ransom in passing before, and had never had a favorable impression of him from the first moment she learned he made the staff call him Hugh. Last night though, they had  _clicked_ and she had seen a lighter side of him for the first time. She had never understood how Harlan could claim they were similar, but now, like a kaleidoscope twisting, those traits of his suddenly lined up in a different pattern, one she recognized.

“Everything okay, Marta,” she heard her mother ask from next to her, where she was sat on the sofa, watching Diagnosis Murder.

“Fine, mom,” she said and walked through to the kitchen. She filled up a glass of water at the sink, the dueling sound of the movie Alice was watching from by the window vying with the Spanish floating in from the other room.

“Holy shit, Marta,” Alice suddenly exclaimed, and Marta turned to face her. “What is that on your finger?”

Marta flushed and realized that the conversation she had been trying to avoid for a little longer had just fallen out into the open two seconds after she was in her family's presence. She really was terrible at keeping things hidden; if she ever murdered someone, the police wouldn't even need her to puke when she tried to deny it, she was sure they'd be able to tell her guilt with just one look.

“Language,” her mother yelled from the front room.

“Mom, get in here,” Alice yelled back across the house. “You won't believe what the fuck Marta has.”

“I said watch your language,” their mom said as she shuffled into the room. Marta stood there, twisting the ring round and round on her finger, as Alice pointed at it, and her forward momentum stopped instantly. “Que mierda es eso?”

“Language?” Alice retorted back at her, and the two began to erupt into yet another screaming match.

“It's an engagement ring,” Marta finally shouted out, desperate for the noise to stop.

“When did you get engaged, hija?” her mom asked her in the sudden quiet. “I thought you said you went to your friend's house, that old client of yours, for some party they were throwing.”

“I did,” Marta said. “I got engaged to his grandson.” Every detail she revealed just seemed to dig the pit in her stomach deeper. This was so far away from any situation she had expected to be in when she had left her house the day before, and just saying the words aloud, acknowledging what had happened in the past day made it sink in, made it more real.

“Are you loco?” her mom said, voice edging back up towards shouting. “All those rich folks are the same, they aren't real like people. Why would you get engaged to one of them? Did he force you into it?”

“Stop,” she said, and was surprised by the iron in her voice. “No, mami, he isn't like that. He didn't force me into anything. We both wanted it.” Her mother and her sister both flinched and took a step back, waiting for the vomit, but it never came.

What she had said was true.

She hadn't really realized until that moment just how true it was. She hadn't had a moment alone to process what was going on all day, but hearing her mother badmouthing Ransom had made it just  _click_ in her head, the same way that it had when they sat across the low table playing Go with each other. He had been drunk then, when he had gone to a safe she hadn't even known was in the room, hidden behind a painting of a safe, and pulled out the most beautiful ring she had ever seen, a massive diamond glittering in its center. She had been sure that he would regret the action in the morning, want nothing more than to take it back, to undo what he had done under the influence of the alcohol. It had hurt her, knowing that it was only a lack of concern for consequences and impaired judgement that had him act as if he wanted her, when he was so handsome that being in his presence made her heart flutter.

But instead, he had pushed it back onto her finger yet again, in front of his family. And then defended her to them, just sitting there while they vented their hate and rage on him, taking it all, never wavering in his stated commitment to her.

It had seemed crazy to her, getting engaged so fast, when they both knew so little about each other. But that steadiness he had shown, his absolute refusal to back down from  _her_ , even to his parents and all his relatives, had swayed her heart. When Harlan had checked that she was alright, she had done the only thing she could, had defended him in kind.

And now, she continued to defend him, to her own family, whose disapproval over her fiance was the same.

“He is a good man,” she continued to speak, the iron that had crept into her voice staying there. “Ransom is like his grandfather, he has a true heart. The rest of his family may not be good people, but he isn't like that. Don't speak like that about him, you haven't even met him.”

That didn't mark the end of the conversation, as they all moved over to the table to sit down and talk more, but it was a turning point in the discussion.

Her words seemed to echo in the air the rest of the night, her mother and sister chewed them over as they discussed plans.

“Do you regret it?” Marta asked, from where she lay sprawled across the couch. She had retired with Ransom back to his house, and was taking advantage of what she had called 'the most sinfully comfortable couch she had ever seen', staring out through what gaps in the forest let her see the stars.

They had just come from the most awkward family dinner ever, and, considering the past history of Thrombey family dinners, Ransom felt comfortable making that declaration. It wasn't the first time they had been to his cabin, Marta had been coming up to visit for the past two weeks, ever since they had gotten 'engaged'. It might not have been real initially, at least as far as their emotions went, what they felt for each other – or didn't feel, rather. Ransom had roped her into this as a ploy, pissed off at his family and desperate to shut them up for once, frustrated with how they had been treating her.

But somewhere along the way, in her visits to his cabin for dinner and Go games, and his treks up to Harlan's manor to stop in and talk to her and the old man during the day, he had started to like her, and it had felt less and less like they were faking and more and more like it was a real engagement.

“Do you?” Ransom asked her back, and crossed over into the kitchen to grab two bottles of beer from the fridge, hiding his face from her. He hadn't expected the idea of rejection from her to sting that much. She had become one of the few people he really respected though, and her disapproval weighed more heavily in his mind than that of all his relatives put together (well, except for the old man, maybe; he had a way of cutting right to the core of you with just one sentence, exposing your most secret regrets and flaws). He had gotten used to his relatives telling him what a disappointment he was, and had listened to seemingly nothing else from them for years. At dinner though, the first time Marta's family had been in the same room as the Thrombeys, when Walt had made some throwaway remark about him that had his own parents nodding in agreement, she had stood up for him, defended his character to everyone there. It had been a wholly new sensation to him, someone taking his side, without hesitation.

“No,” Marta answered instantly, and gathered her thoughts. Ransom felt a shiver of relief run through him at her answer.

He had noticed how everyone, even her own family, seemed to forget about her inability to lie unless she was puking in front of them. It boggled him how it could just slip their minds, how they could ignore the fact that she  _didn't lie_ unless it was smacking them right in the face. But when she had defended his character in the restaurant, she had meant every word of it, just like how she meant that she didn't regret getting engaged to him. He had been surrounded by white lies, and face saving gestures, and people who would smile at your face as they planned to slip the knife into your back his entire life. He had never been able to trust what anyone told him.

Until he met Marta.

He had no doubt in how she felt, since he  _knew_ . He had been prepared to like her as a friend, or for the two of them to barely tolerate each other, and had been willing to go through with marrying her anyway, just to help her out, to make her life easier. But he had been completely unprepared for her to actually  _care_ for him, and he was struggling to deal with that fact.

“No,” Marta repeated. “But then again, I knew what I was signing up for in terms of in-laws. If you're reconsidering now, I would understand.”

Ransom let out a bark of laughter, and walked back into the living room, passing her one of the opened beers, before lifting her feet up and sitting down on the couch underneath them. “I think I still am getting off easier in that exchange.”

And it was true. He had found himself lying less and less in her presence, trying to match her honesty with his own. While her mother and sister had certainly done their share of screaming at the dinner, they hadn't started any of the fights that had popped up over the five separate courses, merely held their own, not backing down in the face of his relatives. He hadn't really seen the similarities between them until then; they were both such loud personalities, while Marta was quieter and more reserved. But she had been just as loud, just as unwilling to back down when she was defending  _him_ , and he was still processing that fact.

“No, I don't have any regrets,” he told her, and held his beer over to clink the neck with hers, before leaning back into the sofa, and trying to let the stress of the night go and just relax.

Marta stared at her reflection in the mirror and felt the strangest disconnect. She had always dreamed of her wedding day when she was younger, had had so many thoughts and plans about how it would be. But of all her wildest dreams, this was so far beyond what she had ever considered.

The dress she saw in the mirror was pure white and sleeveless, the bottom flowing out in a cloud of tulle. She was triple checking the sweetheart top, making sure it was symmetrical, and that her veil hung behind evenly, when she saw a motion in the back of the glass, and turned to see the door opening. She had expected her mother, or really anyone but who she saw standing there.

“How you doing, kiddo?” Harlan asked, and made his way over to her.

“Harlan,” she said, the smile on her face working its way into her voice. “You shouldn't be here, you should be sitting over in the church. You need to rest your leg.”

“Oh, pish posh,” he said, and shimmied back and forth. “It's just warming up for the dance floor later.”

Marta couldn't help herself, and a laugh bubbled up out of her, the giggles bell like in the air.

“You know, I wouldn't have picked you two for each other,” he told her when she settled down, and the air turned somber around them.

“Why not?” she asked the man who had gone beyond her patient and become first her friend, and now, shortly, her family.

“You just seemed too different,” he told her. “Ransom, he,” and Marta squared her shoulders back, ready to defend the man she was about to marry, before he waved her off. “He's always been so focused on himself, not really seeing anyone else around him. I never would have expected him to notice you, let alone ask you to marry him, let alone the same day you first spent any time together.”

“Harlan,” Marta started to say, but felt her voice fall away as her throat closed up, unwilling to lie to her friend, even more than the fear of what the consequences of that lie would mean for her perfectly made up appearance. “It's not what you think.”

“Oh, I think it's exactly what I think it is,” he told her, and smiled, the smile she had only seen him wear around her and never his family. Never around his family until Ransom started to visit her at his house during the day while she was working, and then Harlan had started to truly smile in his presence as well. “I will admit, at first I thought it was some sort of scheme, where he was using you as a piece in whatever game he was playing. And I know there's still some story there, and I can guess at the shape of it easily enough. Despite my age, I haven't slipped into senility yet. But I realized you weren't a pawn to him a while ago, that you both truly made each other happy. It was just completely unexpected to me.”

Marta smiled back at him, her hands slipping down to clasp his and squeeze in appreciation, and she leaned in to whisper in his ear. Her mind slipped back over countless games of Go, against both of the Thrombey men in her life, and how similar and different they all were.

“ _The unexpected moves are how you make beautiful patterns_.”


End file.
